Our news

CTE Wind R&D and Consulting services are the first choice when it comes to foundation design regardless of the WTG-manufacturer, model, size, power or soil conditions. Thanks to internal R&D-Team with senior engineers, holding over 100 years of cumulated experience in the design of wind turbine foundations, nothing is impossible.

La Richardais (FRA) – In 2019 Developers worldwide have globally commissioned a little over 45GW of onshore wind turbines. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the Danish firm Vestas remained this way the world’s leading wind turbine supplier, with Spanish-German wind engineering company Siemens Gamesa a strong second. Chinas manufacturer number one Goldwind was third in the rankings, while US-Leader GE Renewable Energy’s secured its fourth place. Together the top four manufacturers accounted for 55 percent of the market share.

100 years of cumulated experience

This statement applies more or less also to CTE Wind, which calculated, designed and evaluated about 5000 WTG-foundations in 2019 around the globe. Thanks to CTE Wind’s internal R&D, with senior engineers holding over 100 years of cumulated experience in the design of wind turbine foundations worldwide, new turbine models from the top manufacturers as well as less common WTG-models from smaller or local manufacturers are only a little challenge. CTE Wind engineering services lead to state-of-the-art foundation solutions for wind turbines. Regardless of whether it is a prototype, such as GE’s giant 12 MW Haliade X or smaller 1 MW machine, from German ENO or Dutch EWT.

Wooden tower

Also worth mentioning: the different types of towers for wind turbines. Concrete (hollow foundation) and steel towers are well known to CTE Wind. Both tower systems are suitable to be used alone or in combination. Even foundations with wooden towers were calculated and designed by CTE Wind in the past. The sum of all experiences made during the projects since 2003 is the reason why their engineering services in foundation design are the first choice for wind turbine manufacturers, wind park developers and EPC contractors worldwide.

CTE Wind inaugurates its first North American office in Broomfield, Colorado. Senior Engineer Jomâa Ben-Hassine (PhD) will oversee the structural engineering and geotechnical projects in the US and Canada.

Broomfield, CO / La Richardais, France — CTE Wind International, a consultancy specialized in the structural design of onshore foundations for wind turbine generators (WTGs), is pleased to announce the official opening of its North American office – CTE WIND USA, Inc. – in Broomfield, Colorado (Denver metro area).

« The decision to open our new office in the State of Colorado is a sensible choice for us and for our clients, » says CTE Wind International CEO Alexander MARTIN. « Denver is near the geographic center of the country and is at the heart of the wind belt. From Denver International Airport, our office colleagues can reach most project sites in a few hours and can visit with our North American clients easily, » he explains.

The Colorado office is dedicated to supporting the needs of our North American clients. Our customers on both sides of the Atlantic asked CTE Wind for a North American presence. They can now benefit from the same responsiveness and know-how they have come to expect from the CTE Wind offices in France (HQ), Brazil, Poland, Portugal, Spain and in Vietnam.

Experienced Director of Operations & Engineering

Senior Engineer Jomâa Ben-Hassine (PhD, PE, P.Eng., ing.) who is leading the structural and geotechnical consultancy will serve as Director of Operations & Engineering in the US and Canada. Dr. Ben-Hassine is a civil engineer licensed in twenty US states and three Canadian provinces. He has accumulated over 30 years of practical experience in geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, foundation design, soil-structure interaction, reliability-based design, geohazard recognition and mitigation and risk assessment. He is active on several technical and standard development committees and has taken on leadership roles in multiple professional organizations (AWEA’s WTSC, ARESCA, IEC, and ASCE).

« We are very happy to have Jomâa Ben-Hassine on board of CTE Wind USA., » says MARTIN. « He brings in longstanding experience in wind and solar energy and knows the US and European standards and guidelines. North American EPC/BOP contractors and developers will benefit from the best of the two worlds, especially when it comes to bigger wind turbines above 4 MW with higher hub heights. »

About CTE Wind International

CTE Wind Civil Engineering is an international engineering consulting firm specialized in the analysis and design of onshore wind turbine foundations. CTE Wind has been active in the wind energy sector since 2003. As of 2019, CTE Wind has designed, value-engineered or peer-reviewed foundations for over 17,500 turbines in 67 countries. CTE Wind is headquartered in France and has offices in Brazil, Poland, Portugal, Spain, USA and Vietnam.

The company is a subsidiary of the CTE Group, a consulting firm, specialized in building and civil engineering. The CTE Group was founded in 1965 and today is one of the leaders in the structural engineering sector.

In the last 2 years over 50 project developers trusted CTE Wind’s Soft-spot^® solution. Recently in Spain the expert of wind turbine foundations has won their third project, where the Soft-spot^® solution was implemented.

Bilbao (Esp) / La Richardais (FRA) – CTE Wind Ibérica has won again a contract in Spain to calculate and design foundations with its Soft-spot^® solution. This is an important milestone for CTE Wind International as now three wind farms on the Iberian Peninsula will take advantage of its cost saving design. In addition to these projects, CTE Wind’s clients are also adopting this solution in many other wind farms worldwide. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Lithuania, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and Thailand to name a few. Over 50 wind farms around the globe, 750 wind turbines are using this resource saving solution which was introduced a while ago by CTE Wind.

« CTE Wind is proud of the confidence shown by its clients, and especially of the interest on applying the Soft-spot^® solution», Chief executive Alexander MARTIN said and added « Our design provides interesting advantages and cost saving in material consumption and civil works while being easy to be built. »

Simply the most economical foundation

The Soft-spot^® was developed by CTE Wind’s engineering team and is implemented in various countries around the world. As a result of his astonishing design this solution allows savings in concrete volume up to 15%, reduction of foundation diameter and total weight reduction of reinforcement bars of 7 to 9%. The earthwork to be handled is reduced too. In some cases, what is also important is the available space : with Soft-spot^® you need less surface for the foundation. The construction is very easy and the material for the soft layer can be easily purchased for a low price all over the world.

Since 2019 CTE Wind provides geotechnical engineering services to their clients. Over the last six months, Ana Bielza, Senior Engineer at CTE Wind Iberica has taken part in over 45 projects. We have asked her what she actually does and why her role is crucial for the foundation design of wind turbine generators (WTG).

Can you briefly explain to us what a specialist in geotechnical engineering like you does?
Ana Bielza: Geotechnicians apply scientific methods and engineering principles to predict the response of the ground to the foundation requirements. They then deliver this information to the civil engineers so they can design foundations accordingly.

What is the difference between common geotechnical engineering for bridges or building compared to the WTG-geotechnics?
Ana Bielza: There are not many differences. The ground has to be investigated with similar methods (drillings, geophysics, lab tests, etc.) and the same kind of parameters are needed. But the ground capacity is usually not what determines the foundation size, because most of the time the soil strength transmitted by a turbine foundation is not high. Besides, settlements in general are not important in this type of structures. But rotational stiffness can rather be the main ground parameter to manage and sometimes it can even set the foundation size.

CTE Wind offers his services worldwide

You worked on over 45 projects in six months, which is quite a lot. In which countries did you take a look at the ground?
Ana Bielza: Yes, there were many. It looks like our services are very appreciated by the customers (She smiles delighted). I worked for projects in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Israel, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Russia, Spain, Tanzania, Tonga, Turkey, and Ukraine. Of course, every country has its peculiarities. And I not only mean the different ground types you can find but also how the different investigations that are conducted and how the results are delivered.

Looking back on these last months, what were the challenges? Can you maybe share one or two projects with us?
Ana Bielza: Challenging projects are usually the ones located on recent soils in seismic areas and near to the shore (high water table). For example, we have done several basic designs for a huge project in India with 1000 wind turbines, located on a saline desertic zone most of the year. But during the monsoon season the landscape becomes a swamp, with water at ground level. It is a region with an extreme seismic risks, on a recent granular soil (potentially liquefiable) and very aggressive to the concrete. We had to analyze the ground with just four boreholes in an area for 1000 turbines!

Sounds like fun. As far as we know, there are no known cases of significant damage from liquefaction in wind farms. So, how did you solve this problem?
Ana Bielza: Well, with only four drillings for such a huge area, it was mandatory to be conservative, therefore, and according to the client, we worked with two possible scenarios. We hope they were representative for the situation in most of the future turbine positions. The civil engineer then follows our specifications and designs the foundations accordingly with piles.

Trust is an important key factor

Could you tell us about another project?
Ana Bielza: Another challenging project has been the one in a country in South America, a wind farm with over 40 turbines. This was a constructive design where we had also drafted the geotechnical study from a factual report given by the customer, with 45 boreholes, 80 trial pits and 46 geophysical tests as well as an important amount of laboratory tests. The ground was good, a consolidated gravely soil -a conglomerate-, but seemed to be prone to suffer some dissolution because it had salt in its matrix.

What does it mean exactly?
Ana Bielza: The matrix describes the different layers a soil can have. The salt in the matrix can be dissolved by heavy rain or ground water. But even if the ground suffers an hypothetical dissolution, the remaining gravely soil would show enough strength and rigidity to carry the WTG. Besides, there was no water at all in the area, it was in a desert area.

Good conditions. What was the problem then?
Ana Bielza: Yes, but the client was pressuring us to set down categorically that there was no risk of dissolution, and there was no possibility at all for buoyancy. The geotechnics of the project showed good conditions for our SOFT-SPOT® foundation, but the wind farm owner seemed to have unfounded fears and wanted us to affirm that there was zero risk in this area. But zero risk does not exist. It was tricky to explain why there are no risk but we had to write about an hypothetical dissolution. Luckily, we finally came to an understanding. (ctewind)

CTE Wind Vietnam has been awarded with its 3^rd nearshore project. To this day, the Vietnamese expert in foundation design has calculated 27 nearshore wind turbine foundations.

Hanoi (VNM) /La Richardais (FRA) – CTE Wind International branch office in Vietnam (CTV) captures the spirit of the times with its new design for nearshore foundation for wind turbine generator. With its 3^rd project in the intertidal zone in Mekong delta of Vietnam CTV won again the customers’ trust. This is already the 3^rd  project since 2019. With 18 wind turbines and a total power 75MW this project has increased the total of final designs made by CTV to 27. The other two nearshore projects are located in theThanh Hai and in Vung Tau provinces.

New design allows up to 30 % savings

All CTE Wind’s nearshore foundation designs allow to save 30 percent of the construction costs compared to similar projects due to the astonishing design. For the 4.1 MW machines CTE Wind Vietnam has designed a foundation with 550m3 of concrete, 120 tons of steel and 44 piles. The piles have an average length of 60 meters and are hammered into the muddy nearshore underground. In fact, the geotechnics were very challenging and the piles were also designed in-house to withstand tides, waves and ship movements close to the platforms.

If you want to learn more about CTE Wind International you can read more articles about projects and news in OUR-PROJECTS & OUR-NEWS – sections. For more Information about OUR-SERVICES please CONTACT US.

CTV Wind Vietnam CEO Viet-Hung Nguyen will participate at the Vietnam Energy Summit 2020 Exposition in #Hannoi #Vietnam. The theme was ‘Orientation of Vietnam’s national energy development strategy to 2030, vision to 2045’. Over 1000 people attended the summit.

Plus 5GW each year until 2030

In the electricity sector, demand has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 13% since 2000 and is projected to continue to grow at 8% through 2030. The Government estimates that generation capacity needs to increase from the current 42 GW to 60 GW by 2020 and to 100 GW by 2030.
In the energy sector, demand has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 13% since 2000 and is expected to continue to grow at 8% until 2030. The Government estimates that the power capacity needs to increase from 42 GW to 60 GW in 2020 and 100 GW in 2030.
This would require the installation of 5 GW annually between 2018 and 2030, which poses huge technical, administrative, and financial challenges. High levels of historic investment at close to US$8 billion annually will need to be further increased to about US$8–12 billion annually frontloaded through 2030, with an increasing shift toward investments in renewable energy, thermal generation, and network infrastructure.

Source: Report “Vietnam – Maximizing Finance for Development in the Energy Sector” – World Bank

CTV, as part of CTE Wind International

CTV, as part of CTE Wind International, did in the past some excellent work with intertidal foundation design for wind turbines in the Mekong-Delta. You can read more about our nearshore solution here: Tidal resistant foundation design